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Just what I expected

The performances transcend the film's tropes, grounding it in characters that feel more complete than this subgenre often produces.

This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

The plot isn't so bad, but the pace of storytelling is too slow which makes people bored. Certain moments are so obvious and unnecessary for the main plot. I would've fast-forwarded those moments if it was an online streaming. The ending looks like implying a sequel, not sure if this movie will get one

You can sit and question the morals of this film forever and never come to an answer. You can sit and think to yourself, hey, why is someone filming this and not saving this person's life? You can sit and scream stop. What are you doing?? But the fact remains that if someone has reached the point where it seems that death is a beautiful and peaceful solution; then you can save them all you want but they'll always find a solution.As I watched this documentary, it was like time stopped around me and I entered a trance. Witnessing death is a feeling that words cannot explain. This film has made me experience feelings that I have never felt in my life. Hearing the stories of their loved ones, and the witnesses makes you feel like you know these people which makes it harrowing as you watch them fall with such elegance and grace.I was particularly touched by the death of Gene Sprague for a reason I do not know. His death is so majestic and peaceful that it brought me to tears.This film is brilliant, and if you think you're having a hard time then watch this and get some perspective. It's beautifully filmed and for the first time in my life, I completely zoned out in this film as if time froze which gives it my 10 stars.

A film about suicide... sounds enthralling? Its actually depressing. Bleak. Colourless. Tasteless. But interesting.As a South African I know the bridge purely as the bridge in San Fran so above anything else this film told a grim story that is never told. Some may find the lack of intervention a problem but in terms of wildlife filmmaking we are to believe that we are merely there to film, not get involved. Should they have gotten involved? It would have changed the documentary from a showcase of the dreary side of a magnificent structure to that of human beings lending a helping hand to other humans. However, personally I agree with not getting involved. Suicide is not as easy as lending a helping hand. When a person does not want to live, they don't want to live and no matter what you do they will continue to entertain the idea of taking their own life. Psychology will tell us that its actually a survival technique - which is none the clearer than from the one survivor - where the brain convinces that all the wrong the person is doing is a result of the body. Therefore the brain wants to cut itself off from what it deems as the problem. After my fiancé committed suicide I was plagued with ideas of how i could have helped, of what i did wrong and how I was a terrible person to not see how bad things were. But after getting out of bed and talking to friends I found out that this was the eight attempt over the last ten years. There were no other attempts when I was around (I came along in the last two) except for the one at the end, so how was I to know? And I felt this documentary showcased that incredibly, the helplessness felt from the friends and family left behind along with the acceptance of "they were going to do what they were going to do."Its dark, heavy, sad, shocking but interesting... and not once did it pull at my tear ducts (not so difficult to do considering the subject matter) and i appreciated that fact which allowed me to think more about suicide rather than just feel it.

The Bridge is a 2006 documentary film by Eric Steel that purports to tell the stories of a handful of individuals who committed suicide at the Golden Gate Bridge in 2004. The film was inspired by an article entitled 'Jumpers', which was written by Tad Friend and appeared in The New Yorker magazine in 2003. The documentary caused significant controversy when Eric Steel revealed that he had tricked the Golden Gate Bridge committee into allowing him to film the bridge for months during which he captured 23 of 24 known suicides which took place there. In his permit application to the Golden Gate National Recreation Area, Steel said he intended 'to capture the powerful, spectacular intersection of monument and nature that takes place every day at the Golden Gate Bridge'.Do not be fooled by the vacuous comments that have opened this film. This film is not about 'suicide' nor is it about 'painting a three-dimensional portrait of each jumpers last moments' (don't make me laugh) (see Gus van Sant's Last Days for a more evocative depiction of this). It is, rather, another hollow 'documentary' that has caused significant controversy with its apparent profiting from suicide.Using stop-motion photography with multiple cameras pointed at a notorious suicide spot on the bridge, an American Beauty soundscore, and some disillusioned Goth rocker's swan-song as a wraparound intended to increase suspense (excuse the pun), this vapid attempt at film-making has nothing whatsoever to do with 'objectivity' as one commenter stated, nor with the grimy reality that lies at the core of these somewhat final actions.As to 'lucid and enlightening insights' delivered by 'well-spoken and competent individuals' (according to reviews on IMDb) what we have in effect are carefully prepared scripts that convey a lack of authenticity. One also gets the feeling that some of the interviewees, relatives of the deceased, are too distracted by the camera and the thought of being in a film to concern themselves too deeply with the rather sensitive point in question. The tragedy with this 'documentary' was not in 'not helping these people from jumping' as some people have argued, but in profiting from it in such a shallow and insensitive manner. Admittedly, the director thought it might prove an excellent springboard with the delicate subject matter into the world of film and, as he was quoted saying: a career in movies.'Documentaries' like this are unbalanced, tainted (forget the 'objectivity' of our lead commenter - suicide has nothing to do with being objective, nor for that matter with stop-motion photography or kitschy slushy disco-pop), and cosmeticized to such a degree (look no further than the poster) that it loses any real value of the bare-bone realities of suicide before the opening credits have even appeared. What we have in effect then is a trashy take on 'suicide' that tries its best to wow audiences in the most over-simplistic and dumbed down fashion and which revels in these 'joyous jumps' (I can almost hear the camera crew saying 'just one more and we've got a wrap') and sensational faces of death which represent, as one of the few commentors that made any sense on this subject said, the 'money shots' in what is surely a grubbier film than any porno.The Bridge is not a documentary, nor does it even approach the accolade of film, rather it is just another example of puerile ideas exploited to further careers in what these people think is cinema, but is in effect, just another dirty little business intent on making money by whatever means possible.

Yes, this film is mesmerizing and beautifully shot, but mostly this film comes off as exploitive and morbid. I can't abide by film makers standing by with cameras rolling while people are positioning themselves to end their lives.And while I can't hate this film entirely, I did soon grow very weary of it and I was able to realize why one of the suicide jumpers jump was being held off shown until the very end of the film. For that reason alone I should hate this film, but I am cynical enough to realize why the film was made this way and to some extent I accept it. However, that does not mean that I have to admire or like it.I can't recommend this film, but I believe that the morbid curiosity that exists within got the better of me, but I am certainly no better now because of it.